I Accidentally Came Out To My Mom
How I texted the wrong person by mistake.
In my defense, I was high….
Not on marijuana. On love. When you’re eighteen, they’re practically the same thing.
It all started in second grade. The day I told a friend I had a crush on Chris Fedun from Jump5, a Christian teen pop group. She gasped, bolted for the blacktop, and immediately told another second-grader. They giggled and pointed at me. I was humiliated. I’ll never forget that day.
It was the day I found out liking boys was wrong.
From that point on my childhood was a conglomeration of covert attempts to avoid the spotlight. After all, the spotlight is to closeted kids as sugar is to diabetics. We love it, but too much of it can harm us. Better to blend in.
Until I was eighteen, the word gay never even left my lips.
Seriously. Until then I didn’t even think the word. If I had to address it in my mind, I’d spell it out. G-A-Y. Most of the time, I hoped it was a defect that would disappear with age.
I couldn’t even be in the same room with anything that resembled gayness. When Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, I fled the room faster than you could say no homo. I thought the entire family would slowly look at me. Their necks would creak like rusty door hinges. To this day I can still hear my aunt clapping and shouting “It’s because of the tent scene! That steamy, hot, erotic tent scene!”
I miss that kid. His ninja deflection skills were awesome. But I also feel bad for him. I wonder sometimes what life would look like now had he not spent so much time running from himself.
The night I came out to my mom was a catastrophe.
I can laugh about it now, almost ten years later, but I pretended like it never happened for years. I was a freshman in college at the time, living in the campus dorms, and unbeknownst to my dear-old-mom, dating a guy. His name was Ryan.
Ryan was different than the other gay guys I’d seen. He had vivid blue eyes and light brown skin. His hair was crimped into tight, masculine curls, and his voice was deep, yet flicked with the tiniest traces of femininity. He commanded attention. He spoke freely, laughed openly, and captured the spotlight. In most respects, he was the exact opposite of me.
I met him at orientation. We were going around the room introducing ourselves. When he spoke, some closed part of myself flung open like Jim Carey’s mouth in The Mask. His deep voice and unflinching comfortability practically paralyzed me. He openly admitted to being bisexual, right there in front of everyone. I was stunned.
I approached him later and asked for his number. I needed to talk to him. I needed to ask him about his gayness, as though my life depended on it. We met the next day in my dorm room. He sat down at the communal kitchen table, hands in his lap, patiently open to my questions.
“How did you know you were…gay?” I asked.
“I just did,” he said. “I always knew. It was never a big deal for me.”
That was all it took. I kissed him. More like lunged for him, but my mouth landed on his and that was all it took…
From then on, I clung to Ryan like water to a sponge. I scampered after him wherever he went. I texted him every minute of the day. I dreamed of him day and night. Heard his voice in my head as though it were my own. There was no end to my obsession.
In the process, I avoided my family like the plague. I couldn’t bear the thought of visiting them. I was convinced they would see the gay on me.
So, I’m not sure how I ended up at my mom’s house the night I accidentally texted her. There are gaps in my memory, like why I was even there, how I’d gotten there without a car, and what my mom did to prompt me to text her instead of Ryan.
Other things stand out like a bright rainbow flag: the warm October breeze coming in from the open screen door. The Halloween decorations around the house. The jack-o-lantern sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.
My mom left the room. I pulled out my phone to text Ryan:
Babe, something’s different with my mom. I feel like she knows. This is so scary, I didn’t plan on telling her tonight but hey, if she can’t accept me for being gay, at least I have you. That’s all that matters. I’ll call you as soon as I can.
At the other end of the house, my mom was running the faucet in the bathroom. It suddenly stopped. I unlocked my phone. Ryan hadn’t responded. He was typically quick about that, so my eyes raked the screen like a vacuum, slowly landing at the top of the thread, and where Ryan’s name should’ve been, was the name “Mom”.
I almost ran for the back door.
My panic was suffocating. My heart was a manic hummingbird, frantically flapping its wings. My throat swelled. At the other end of the house, I heard my mom’s slippers slowly shuffle down the hallway. Her phone was in her hand. She sat down in front of me. I avoided her eyes.
“Did you mean to text me that?” she asked, setting the phone beside the jack-o-lantern.
“Text you what? I didn’t text you.”
My mom placed her hand on mine.
“Honey, is there something you want to tell me?”
I got up. Started pacing. I wasn’t ready for this. So, I lied.
I told her I wasn’t gay, people just threw out that term because it was all-encompassing. I was actually bisexual. I reassured her I still liked girls, there was still a chance for me to have a wife and kids. It’s not that big of a deal.
I ended the conversation faster than you could say West Hollywood.
She didn’t ask who babe was. I didn’t tell her.
Two months and one boyfriend later, I came out to her again for a second time. This time for real. My dad was with her, and my brother and sister were with me. I didn’t hide behind a bisexual shield like before (an unfortunate tactic used far too often). I never brought up that uncomfortable night in the kitchen, and neither did she. I think we both knew I had been lying. I think deep down she knew I was gay, and knew how important coming out was, and so spared me the mistake of undermining the experience with a lie. She gave me the opportunity to do it for real, when I was ready.
Ryan and I didn’t last long. I wouldn’t have lasted long with me either. But he did give me a far greater gift than any relationship could’ve — he gave me the confidence and courage to be truly and unapologetically me.
So, Ryan (even though that’s not your real name), if you’re reading this… Thank you.
And mom, if you’re reading this, thanks for letting me do it better a second time.
And to any gay person grappling with the decision to come out…
Know that on the other end of this struggle is joy and acceptance. There’s a whole community of people waiting to meet you. Coming out led me to self-love. It shined a light on all the parts of me I thought needed to be hidden, and in return gave me a life beyond my eighteen-year-old-self’s wildest dreams.
But most importantly, coming out taught me the hard, but the necessary skill of always double-checking who I’m texting before I hit send.
A win-win, if you ask me.
